88:67-win in the last game of the first half of the season
Title-defenders RSV Lahn-Dill took their last hurdle in the first half of the season on the 9th game day. Hosted by Koeln 99ers they bagged an invulnerable win with 88:67 (24:16/46:29/66:48), and the basis for this was already put down in the 2nd quarter. Exceptional players for RSV were Captain Michael Paye and Center Joe Bestwick, who both together scored 57 points.
The Coaches Nicolai Zeltinger and Ralf Neumann had to do without Thomas Boehme though, as he had a wrist injury, and also Marco Zwerger was only watching from the bench due to being poorly. A pretty even match developed at the start, a vivid slugfest at 8:6 (3rd min). In this early phase it was mainly US-pointguard Michael Paye and the British Centre Joe Bestwick who added 19 points to the 24:16 in the first quarter. “Mikey has been acting sovereignly in his role as team-leader and was the head of our game, whilst Joe is showing off more and more how dangerous he is under the basket.” praises Head-Coach Zeltinger his two leading players.
The Middle Hesse team started the second quarter willing to set a win into stone, and a 10:0-run by Dirk Koehler put the team ahead to 34:16 (14th min). Only the next couple of minutes the Cologne team coached by Martin Otto seemed to find their way into the game a little better. It was down to Thomas Becker and the Dutch Jaap Smid that the hosting team could shrink the point-difference to a 27:42 (17th min) and therefore saved their team from an obvious defeat.
They kept this trend up after half-time, and Cologne managed to reduce their turnovers and presented themselves as worthy opponents against the title-defenders in scoring and rebounds. Wetzlar’s lead stayed at a constant level which offered an attractive game to watch for the spectators. It was only after the 72:56 (33rd min) and through David Amend that the nine-time German Champion upped their tempo again, and also Michael Paye added 2 minutes later to a 84:61 and pushed his personal stats to 34 points and 12 assists.
Additional to Captain Michael Paye it was Joe Bestwick who impressed on his former home-court, where he advanced to RBBL-Top-Scorer in the season 2008/2009 for the Cologne 99ers. He demonstrated his abilities with a hit-rate of 71 per cent and perfectly harmonised with his teammates. The third player to score in double figures was National Player Jan Haller, and showed his strength in defence stealing the ball seven times.
Koeln: Thomas Becker (25), Jaap Smid (22), Lars Bergenthal (8), Marina Mohnen (6), Frederic Jaentsch (2), Patrick Richter (2), Dominik Zielke (2), Gada Jammoul, Sedat Oezbicerler, Gabriel Kasapoglu (n.e.).
Lahn-Dill: Michael Paye (34), Joe Bestwick (23), Jan Haller (10), Thomas
Gundert (6), Gesche Schuenemann (6), Dirk Koehler (5), David Amend (4),
Christopher Huber, Bjoern Lohmann, Felix Schell.